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A collection of ConjureMan Ali's thoughts about magic, the occult, and spirituality.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Making Magical Chalks

I love magical chalks. They are easy to make, pack a punch, and can be used for nearly anything. They can be made for use in rituals and spells, both to add power, or as part of the central part of the rite and for those familiar with Hoodoo, or the African Diasporic Traditions they are an excellent way of deploying sneaking tricks.

Natural chalks hold a very strong charge and can be imbued with the proper mix of magical powders, prayers, and herbs to accomplish the ends of the magician. With the right mix, one could make them to add power to a magical rite like evocation, or make them for a variety of conditions like love, money, protection etc. In addition, they are quite easy to use. For example, one could make a commanding-type chalk, carry it in the pocket and when going to shake hands, rub some of the chalk on your hands then touch that person, or while sitting at the table with that person, subtly mark the underside of the table with the chalk.

The same techniques can be used for any condition, one could lay down a line with a love chalk for your intended to walk through, one could mark and X on the foot path of an enemy with a destruction chalk, or one could create a barrier around your property with a protection chalk. They can even be used for healing, marking specific points on the body to turn back an illness, remove a spirit, or seal the body from further sickness. They can also be an easy way to carry powders; forming them into a stick, one could carry any magical powder ready to use, crumble in your hand and blow the powder to deploy.

1. Crack the eggs to get their eggshells, or save the eggshells from your baking, cooking etc. Make sure to remove the collagen or inner membrane from the eggshells. The membrane is often a pinkish hue and comes off easily with some picking. Make sure your eggshells are washed and clean before using. Its best to let them dry for about 24 hours before use.

2. Once the eggshells are dry grind them up in a mortar. You'll need to grind them into a fine powder. This will take some time and patience, but make sure you grind it into as fine a powder as possible, removing any larger pieces that wont grind down any further. Pray your intent into this powder. You can make a general prayer of power and blessing, or pray for a specific intent if the chalk is made for a specific condition.

Powdered eggshell is called cascarilla and is found commonly among the practitioners of the ATRs, Latin American folk magic and other traditions. Cascarilla is used to mark the body at specific spots, for cleansings, purification, and protection. Cascarilla has made its way into modern hoodoo practices, via outside traditions. But while cascarilla may not have been used in traditional hoodoo, homemade eggshell powder and eggshell chalks were, likely a replacement for West and Central African uses for efun/pemba, they simply didn't call it cascarilla.

3. Once you've ground up the eggshells mix in 1 tsp of flour with 1 tablespoon of the powdered eggshell. You can eye it to make sure that you've got an even mixture. The flour is used as binder so make sure to mix them together thoroughly. At this point add in your powders and just a pinch of the herbs you want. Too man herbs will break up the mixture so be careful. Again mix it thoroughly. Make sure to pray over the herbs, powders, and the mixtures. It is also at this point you can add your colors. If you are making a black chalk, I also suggest adding pinch of drawing charcoal.

4. Add in a tsp of hot water and mixing it in. The mixture will begin to be sticky, but keep mixing to get all the pieces. Squish it all together to make a nice little ball.

5. Roll the ball in your hands or against wax paper to make it into a cylindrical shape or what shape you want. Wrap this in a paper towel or wax paper and tie it closed. Set this aside for at least three days.

6. Now you've got yourself magical chalk! Add it to your magical work and tricks and experiement with the different effects and combinations.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

This is a great post! I even tried it recently and I can tell I have some work to do before its really workable, but it was really fun to try. I did a review of my work on it as well, of course linking everything back to your website. I hope through practice I can make a chalk as well as the one you showed in your final picture! Kodus to you for sharing such awesome information with the public!

I have a question for you: Instead of grinding down eggshells, can cascarilla (efun) be crumbled up and used in place of them? Will the recipe still work, or must it be pure eggshells used to make the chalk?

I've actually not used Efun to make homemade chalk, but I see no reason why it cannot be done. Indeed there are other recipes to making homemade chalk that call for using plaster of paris. The use of eggshells in this recipe is employing a natural element which can hold and retain prayers.

I would suggest trying it out with efun and see if it works well in creating a chalk and let us know.

what if instead of plain hot water I used some tea instead? would it go rancid? couldn't you please give us some examples of recipes of pembas, and it-'s use, so we would understand with more propriety which herbs are effective when used in pembas? This was a great post, by the way. I am brazilian, and understand most of your references towards some of our traditions. Though I must say, quimbanda is not nearly as common as candomblé or umbanda - not as difused, that is. It lacks public exposure, unlike the latter. I greatly admire your work, and I am much obliged.

About Me

ConjureMan Ali, also known to some as Dr. Raven, is a traditional conjurer and magus--a practitioner of old world sorceries and new world magicks. He works within the grimoire tradition along with its Middle Eastern counterparts and is a professional rootworker. A graduate of catherine yronwode's Hoodoo and Rootwork Correspondence Course, he's a spiritual practitioner who reads and performs rootwork on behalf of clients and is an accredited and reputable member of the Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers. A Tata in the tradition of Quimbanda, his approach to the occult and magick is scholarly and practical with an emphasis on classical occult education combined with real-world practice. He is a diviner, an astrologer, a geomancer, cartomancer, and a dreamer. If you are interested in learning more about him or the services he offers go to www.conjuremanali.com